Almost everyone in their professional life will find themselves in a moment where they are looking for a new place to work, so either voluntary or involuntarily almost all of us will find ourselves interviewing for a job opportunity at some point. You may agree with me that the a lot of people may react like “Agh! This sucks.“ or “I am really bad at interviews.“ I can assure you, you are not alone.
In case you ask yourself now “Who are you anyway?”, let me introduce myself. I’m Fre, I am acting as Talent Acquisition Manager here at YAGER, and thus for new and prospective team members, I often end up their first point of contact. Today, I would like to shed some light on our recruiting process.
Talent Acquisition as a discipline first rose as a necessity around filling vacancies, but nowadays it has evolved into way more than only that. For many, interviewing for a new role, is a great chance to find a place where they will be investing many years of their lives, to enjoy and grow in their careers.
Since day one YAGER has been a company that wants to make sure it is bringing the right talent for the dreams we wanted to pursue. We’ve always taken hiring super serious and as we evolved as a company we adapted our process to reflect the maturity of our values and mission. And that is why we have been working relentlessly to make our process a clear and challenging, yet enjoyable journey. To kick off on a high note, there are three values that drive Talent Acquisition at our company:
- Transparency
- Enthusiasm
- Humanistic approach
YAGER’s Talent Acquisition Drivers
We believe the interview process to be a two way effort. A main goal for us is that at the at the end of the process you are just as confidant as we are, that this will be a long-lasting great match. The best way to make this possible is being transparent and clear on how we see this happening. We are passionate about our mission and values and want to plant the seed of enthusiasm in you. Yet we can’t ever forget one essential thing: In the end, we are all human.
So let’s dive into the actual process! At YAGER every new hire will need to go through four milestones before their on-boarding begins. The milestones are: TUTORIAL, EXPERT, FINALS, and OFFER.
YAGER’s Interview Process Milestones
Let’s have a closer look at each of these.
TUTORIAL
This includes all the steps from application review to a screen with a headhunter/recruitment agency (if you are applying through one) and the first interview with People & Culture. At this stage we are learning about the opportunity and finding all necessary alignment and clarity to decide if it’s a “game” we want to play together. You will be expected to align on topics like motivation, work setting (hybrid or remote), compensation, timing and high level on culture, as well as the position and project you might end up with, after joining YAGER.
EXPERT
When you get to this stage you should have a clear understanding on what to expect on the whole process and you may have a better picture whether this looks like a job opportunity you want to invest more time in. Naturally, for us to be able to safely share more information, there will be a traditional NDA signing process so we can protect you and YAGER, when sharing more of the exciting things we are working on.
On this milestone you will have the chance to meet people from the discipline you have applied for. In a one hour in-depth craft-assessment interview you will be asked situational and behavioral questions to discover examples from the past where you have succeed in your craft, but also put in hypothetical scenarios to find out what you believe would be the best approach and solution in these situations. This milestone is composed of one interview usually lead by a duo of interviewers and sometimes (depending on your discipline) you might also face a small test.
FINALS
Very few candidates reach this milestone, if you got here that means you are doing a good job. This means we and you are both excited with the possibility of working together. You should know now what a day in the position you are interviewing for looks like, and how some important things like collaboration and feedback culture work at YAGER.
At FINALS you will face a round of three interviews, each one is focused on one of our core values (If you haven’t already, you can check them out in the “about“ section of our website). These interviews are also typically lead by two interviewers, but this time you will have the chance to meet a more diverse set of people coming from different disciplines that will collaborate strongly with the position you are interviewing for. These interviews will be heavily behavior anchored, so you will be asked thoroughly on moments from your past career where you have demonstrated traits that align with our values.
If preparation is important for any interview process, here is where it will make the difference. We are big fans of clarity. Using methods like STAR or SAO to tell stories can be very helpful for you as well as for our understanding of you and your past experience.
OFFER
Great news! You have been invited to the final milestone of the process. Only 1% of candidates actually get to this stage. So if you got here, congratulations! Usually we have a high offer conversion, but still this is a crucial stage to showcase the reliability of our process. Here we usually separate into verbal offer and written offer moments. If the role you are applying for has people manager responsibilities, we will ask your help to do a simple reference check as well. Provided everything is running smoothly and we get your official acceptance we will move to on-boarding.
Our interview process is thought to be like this and even though it might look pretty straightforward for some, we intentionally want to take the time to make sure we get to a win-win long lasting match with you. We are not only TRUE TO THE GAME but also true to building world class teams.